On Wednesday afternoon, the sun is beaming down on the courtyard of the Durham County Detention Facility, where about two dozen people are gathered. A small group forms a circle and begins a call and response, their words reverberating off of the jail’s high, gray walls. “If you can hear me, say power!” Serena Sebring […]
Sarah Willets
Posted inNews
Durham County Budget Proposal Includes Tax Increase, More Sheriff’s Office Positions, Money for Pre-K
Durham County Manager Wendell Davis’s proposed budget includes a 1.9 cent property tax increase, additional funding for education and new positions in the Sheriff’s Office. Davis presented his $644 million proposal to the Board of Commissioners Monday night. They’re slated to approve the spending plan on June 25, after a June 11 public hearing.
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Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests in Durham Are Way Down
The Durham Police Department filed about half as many misdemeanor marijuana charges in 2017 than it did the year before, according to a newly released annual report. In 2017, the DPD filed 498 charges for misdemeanor marijuana possession or possession of drug paraphernalia, across 426 individual arrests. That’s down from 854 charges in 2016 and […]
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A Nonprofit Is Helping Three-Dozen Mothers Behind Bars in Raleigh Connect With Their Kids
“They are all good moms. It’s just the situation they’re in here.”
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Incumbents Out in Durham Sheriff, District Attorney Races
Durham County will have a new sheriff and district attorney after Tuesday’s primary election. Clarence Birkhead unseated incumbent Sheriff Mike Andrews. Birkhead won 69 percent of votes to Andrews’s 31 percent, more than reversing the results of a 2014 match between the two. Birkhead will be the county’s first black sheriff.
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Durham District Attorney Candidates Questioned on How to Reform the Office
Attorney Scott Holmes pressed candidates running for district attorney in Durham Tuesday night about what they would do to lessen the harms of the criminal justice system on poor people, people of color, and young people. The forum, sponsored by The Justice Collaborative Engagement Project, ACLU of North Carolina, and Carolina Justice Policy Center, covered […]
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Seven Hundred People Return to Durham From Prison Each Year. A Homecoming Celebration Aims to Welcome Them With Open Arms.
On Thursday night, a crowd lined the wooden pews in the sanctuary of Durham’s First Presbyterian Church. As one might expect, there was prayer, singing, and references to Bible verses. But this was no ordinary service. It was a celebrationin the spirit of traditional church homecomings across the Southof the seven hundred or so people […]
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Candidates for Durham District Attorney Will Debate at NCCU Next Week
Three Democrats running for Durham district attorney in the May 8 primary will face each other in a debate at North Carolina Central University next week. Durham attorney Scott Holmes will moderate the debate between incumbent DA Roger Echols and challengers Satana Deberry and Daniel Meier. Deberry is executive director of the North Carolina Housing […]
Posted inAlternative Wedding Guide
You Can Get Hitched in the Jail, or Above I-40, or at a Lot of Weird Places
The Durham County Detention Facility isn’t the first place you’d think of to get hitched. Unless you’re Natalie Spring and Harris Carpenter, that is. The Durham couple had vowed not to get married until same-sex marriage was legalized in North Carolina. In 2008, they had a commitment ceremony that wasn’t conventional either.
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A New Report Shows that Women of Color Are “Particularly Burdened” by Gentrification in Durham
Low-income women of color are “particularly burdened” by gentrification in Durham, according to a new report by UNC-Chapel Hill students. The public policy students are UNC Capstone Fellows who have been working with WomenNC as part of the NC Coalition for CEDAW, which refers to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of […]
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